Friday, 24 May 2013

Pussy Press Helps Redefine Stockholm Syndrome

Stockhom Syndrome

Stockholm syndrome, or capture–bonding, is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy andsympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them, and sometimes the feeling of love for the captor shows. These feelings are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, who essentially mistake a lack of abuse from their captors for an act of kindness.[1][2] TheFBI's Hostage Barricade Database System shows that roughly 27% of victims show evidence of Stockholm syndrome.[3]

Stockholm Syndrome can be seen as a form of traumatic bonding, which does not necessarily require a hostage scenario, but which describes “strong emotional ties that develop between two persons where one person intermittently harasses, beats, threatens, abuses, or intimidates the other.”[4] One commonly used hypothesis to explain the effect of Stockholm syndrome is based on Freudian theory. It suggests that the bonding is the individual’s response to trauma in becoming a victim. Identifying with the aggressor is one way that the ego defends itself. When a victim believes the same values as the aggressor, they no longer become a threat.[5]

Stockholm syndrome is named after the Norrmalmstorg robbery of Kreditbanken at Norrmalmstorg in Stockholm, Sweden, in which several bank employees were held hostage in a bank vault from August 23 to August 28, 1973. During this situation, the victims became emotionally attached to their captors, rejected assistance from government officials at one point and even defended them after they were freed from their six-day ordeal.[11] The term “Stockholm syndrome” was coined by thecriminologist and psychiatristNils Bejerot, using the term in a news broadcast.[12] It was originally defined by psychiatrist Frank Ochberg to aid the management of hostage situations.[13]

A Google News search on "Sweden riots" done tonight at 10 PM ET (not in quotes, sorted by date, with duplicates) returned 314 items. Adding the word "Muslim" to the search reduced the number of results to nine. Fewer than a handful are from establishment press outlets, and one of those only appeared in the search results because a commenter and not the story's writer used the M-word.

That pretty much tells you all you need to know about the determined denial of reality in which the worldwide press is engaged in reporting riots in the suburbs of Stockholm, which have entered their fifth day. The Associated Press, as would be expected, is a willing participant in that exercise, as the following headline which could have been (any maybe was) written by an Occupy movement member and the accompanying excerpt from a Thursday afternoon story filed by the wire service's Malin Rising demonstrates (bolds are mine throughout this post):

SWEDEN'S RIOTS RAISE QUESTIONS ABOUT INEQUALITY

Sweden has long been a bastion of generous social welfare and an egalitarian political culture. So many people were shocked when scores of youths hurled rocks at police and set cars ablaze during rioting in several largely immigrant areas near Stockholm this week.

For some, the real reason for the unrest is the high unemployment and isolation of youths in the southern and western Stockholm suburbs where the violence occurred - ones who see little future for themselves or access to Sweden's prosperity.

"The segregation in Stockholm increases all the time, and it's happening fast," said Nina Edstrom, a social anthropologist who promotes integration at a center for multiculturalism in Fittja, where some of the violence occurred. "There are very large social differences. There are many unemployed, frustrated young people. I'm not surprised something like this happens," she said.

Still, Edstrom added, it would be a mistake to see the youths involved in the riots as political activists.

Overall, about 15 percent of Sweden's 9.5 million people were born abroad, compared to 10 percent 10 years ago. The influx has mostly come from war-torn countries such as Iraq, Somalia, former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Syria.

... Some say that one reason such immigrant areas can feel isolating is the growing disparity between the haves and have nots in Sweden, as in many other Western countries.

Despite Sweden's high living standards and its egalitarian ways, the country has seen the biggest surge in inequality of any Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development country over the past 25 years, according to a recent OECD report.